STATE TIMES NEWS
KATRA: Various measures were discussed for augmenting water and power supply at Katra, and along the Track en-route Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Dr. M.K Bhandari, Chief Executive Officer of the Shrine Board on Friday. Special focus on ensuring sufficient and uninterrupted supply of water and power was laid, in view of the damages caused during rains in September, 2014 and considering increase in the pilgrimage witnessed every year during the month of December.
Dr. M.K Kumar, Additional Chief Executive Officer, SMVDSB, Devinder Singh Bhau, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, P. C Tanoch, Executive Engineer, SMVDSB, Rajan Gupta, Executive Engineer, EM and RE Division, Reasi, K. K. Magotra, Executive Engineer, PHE, Reasi and other concerned engineers and officers of the Shrine Board participated in the meeting.
A detailed review was taken of all the ongoing works and new schemes which are to be executed for meeting emerging requirements of the pilgrimage with regard to water and power supply. In PHE sector the works which came under review included Pai Nallah Water Supply Scheme, Contingency scheme from Siar Dabri to Himkoti, water supply facility for New Track, upcoming projects at Katra, provision of water supply at Receiving Station, Tarakote, additional water supply for Gurukul Phase-II, Serli Helipad and Multi-Specialty Hospital at Kakryal.
Similarly, the power supply schemes which were reviewed in the meeting included shifting of Sub-Stations in the Shrine area, improvement of 11 KV feeders of Shrine Board by providing isolation points in Katra and the Shrine, installation of HT/LT lines along the New Track, provision of additional phase line on the entire track etc.
Dr. Bhandari emphasised the urgent need for completion of all the ongoing works within fixed timelines to facilitate the pilgrims. He underscored the need for formulating a database of all the facilities location-wise and replacing or immediately repairing the ones which get non-functional due to overuse.
The CEO further stressed that all required measures need to be intensified for further augmenting water supply at all the establishments of the Shrine Board, on the track and in the Bhawan area to largely facilitate the visiting pilgrims.
This was followed by field visit along with all the officers for inspection of the water supply schemes and related facilities.